Future Shock Blog

Minor League Update: Games of August 23

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A 2009 fifth-round pick out of a California junior college, Balcom-Miller has quickly gone from a sleeper to one of the better pitching prospects in the Colorado system. Feature outstanding command of a plus fastball to go with a solid slider and changeup, the 21-year-old now has 108 strikeouts in 103 innings while allowing just 78 hits, 18 walks and featuring and excellent ground ball rate. What's not to like?

Drabek hasn't had a lot of nights like these, when he's dominating and missing bats, but the story of his season, if anything, has been consistency. While a 2.98 ERA and 123 strikeouts in 154 innings is good; it's not the kind of numbers one gets from an elite prospect, but a quick run through his game log shows no bad night. Drabek has gone at least five innings in all but one start, when he went four, and to find a pitcher like that is at times as hard as finding one with those elite numbers.

Splitting time between third base at shortstop due to Dayan Viciedo's promotion, Morel's positional switches have had no effect on his hitting, as he's gone 13-for-26 during his current seven-game hitting streak to raise his Triple-A averages to .321/.350/.498. He's been a surprisingly solid shortstop, although the hot corner is his more natural position, and one where he'll get a very long look next spring.

Is it fair to say that the Angels might be a little closer to a playoff spot had they called up Trumbo when Kendry Morales went down? Now batting .347/.430/.612 since the All-Star break, Trumbo would have saved them from the constant lineup shuffling and putting players like Howie Kendrick, Robb Quinlan and Kevin Frandsen at first base.

Matt Carpenter, 3B, Cardinals (Double-A Springfield): 2-for-4, 2B, 2 R, RBI, BB, K. Now batting .400/.515/.600 in 22 August games and .334/.436/.519 at Double-A, he's arguably the top position prospect in a system desperate for them.

Chris Carter, 1B/OF, Athletics (Triple-A Sacramento): 2-for-5, HR (30), R, RBI, 2 K. Home runs in back-to-back games after big league struggles; still lined up for a job in Oakland next year.

Derek Holland, LHP, Rangers (Triple-A Oklahoma City): 6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 5 K. One has to think there will be some kind of big league role for him down the stretch.

Jose Iglesias, SS, Red Sox (Double-A Portland): 3-for-5, 3 RRBI, K, SB. Six hits in last two games and .303/.339/.389 overall; throw in the fantastic defense and he might be big league ready quicker than expected.

Kevin, I'd be interested to hear your current take on Freeman vs. Carter, as perhaps the two best 1B prospects remaining in the minors right now not named Hosmer. Despite roughly similar physical dimensions, it seems like their profiles and skill sets could not be more different. Carter is low contact (last year's AA line is starting to look a bit BABIP-fueled), high walk rate, prodigious power, and atrocious afield. Freeman is high contact (for a 1B, at least), low walk rate, middling (though emerging) pop, and a plus defender. Carter's a RHB, and Freeman a LHB. They have mostly played and will continue to play on opposite coasts in opposite leagues. Carter is a Jacob guy, whereas Freeman is strictly Team Edward. Seriously, don't differences like these make it difficult to compare the two?

Sickels says Freeman has now passed Carter as a prospect, and BA seems to agree (they were in a relative dead heat before this season, but Freeman made BA's mid-season top 25 and Carter missed the cut). You had Carter -- but not Freeman -- on a short list of candidates for the last spot on your mid-season top 11 remaining list, and a fairly wide gap between the two in the preseason (I recognize the rankings aren't an exact science, but there must be some daylight between 11 and 51).

Both your and BA's mid-season takes were before Freeman's red hot August, and before Carter's O-for-MLB cup of coffee (though Carter had a nice July/Aug in AAA in his own right). So I can only assume that Freeman will be comfortably ahead of Carter on BA's prospect list next spring. Would you give Freeman the edge over Carter now, too, given A/R/L, and Freddie's emerging power (May-Aug ISOs of .175, .193, .216, and .241)? Or is there no wrong answer here, in that Carter, as evidenced by his growth throughout the season at AAA, still has a shot to be an impact power bat in the show?

nice catch on this. based on twitter/FB seems they fired him, there is a story that is leaking to some people (not subscribers), no official explanation. Will seems unable to talk about it due to "legal" issues.

2. Statement that "sources" told him Strasburg was to see Andrews, then recantation (saying sources just said he was going to see a specialist, which he assumed was Andrews.).

Whether either of these is connected is unclear.

I'd like to know what happened, too. Carroll claims to be legally barred from talking about something that angers him, which implies an NDA.

I'd certainly not judge BP too harshly if there was a split and we got little information other than he was gone.

Carroll's a bit of a curious character, making some intriguing claims (he found Verducci effect before Verducci popularized - when pinned on numbers, backed off a bit; claiming Beltran's career was over then backing off that; the steroid implications then the disclaiming of same toward one well-known player; the claim that multiple clubs had 30-pitch limits for a single inning on all pitchers, which is researchable if you have the tools... there's more) and of course he was the primary source of BP's most embarrassingly wrong story, the Rose debacle. Of course, he's also a highly popular and prolific outputter of injury information.

Whether any of this is relevant to the instant situation is unknown by those on the outside, like me.

I have no inside information on any of this. I'd caution against confident conclusions based on limited data. I'd hope for some sort of announcement from BP. And I'd wish all parties the best.

Good post. "Curious character" is certainly an apt description, but he seems to have always been that way. I'm not asking for dirt, I'm simply asking for some kind of official notification. UTK was a BIG part of why many people subscribe. Yanking it w/o any explanation is unprofessional.

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Kevin: Not good enough. This goes to BP's basic mission and appeal. If something is happening, we have a right to know. Let this simmer one more 24 hour cycle and you will have blown it with me. I hope this is not what I suspect. Oh and by the way, Love my BP.

If you look at his tumblr blog he posted what looks like an UTK (though he didn't call it that) on August 20, 3 days after his last one at BP. That made me think the worst.

I agree we should be notified (not the "why" details obviously) if Will is no longer part of BP, as his articles are one of my main reasons for subscribing (along with Kevin's and the expanding fantasy coverage).

And that he called the section at the end "Speedy Nicks" instead of "Quick Cuts" suggests to that there's a copyright issue involved as well. This is all very troubling and I hope some sort of explanation is provided soon. (Including if we're imagining something nefarious that doesn't exist...)

Just to pile on a bit, perhaps one of the most significant events concerning the business of baseball happened this week, but still there is no mention of the leaked financial statements on this site. There will be huge ramifications in the collective bargaining sessions after this season because of these leaked documents (see them on deadspin.com).

Thompson has really impressed me since his injury, he grew up in the northwest and said he grew up admiring junior, and he has the potential to be aa game changer, maybe not quite like him, but he can do everything out there, and once he gets more discipline at the plate its going to be scary